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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24165823">Drowning in Red</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenAurelieChoiseau/pseuds/RavenAurelieChoiseau'>RavenAurelieChoiseau</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Stripped: Ethan and Dorian [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dorethan, Penny Dreadful (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Anger, Angst, Attempted Seduction, Attraction, Awkward Conversations, Barebacking, Bisexual Ethan Chandler, Canon as much as it can be for the purposes of the story, Cold Weather, Come Swallowing, Conversations, Discovery, Ethan has anger issues, F/M, Fear of Discovery, Friendship/Love, Gothic, Horses, Invitation, Jealousy, Kissing, Lighthouses, London, Love, Love Confessions, Love Triangles, M/M, Medium - Freeform, Mutual Attraction, Mutual Pining, Not Really Character Death, Old Friends, One-Sided Attraction, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Post-Canon, Romantic Friendship, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Rude Guests, Scratching, Seaside, Seduction, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Smut, Temptation, Vaginal Sex, Vampires, Victorian, Visitors, Werewolves, guests - Freeform, playing cards, some tags are for future chapters, victorian gothic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:22:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,501</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24165823</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenAurelieChoiseau/pseuds/RavenAurelieChoiseau</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>By the hearth was the silhouette of a woman; tall and proud, in a becoming gown of navy and lace, posed with her slender hand on the mantelpiece like she was a sculptor’s muse. She wore an aura of elegance that placed her in a realm that could not be earthly.<br/>“My dearest Mr. Chandler. Ethan.”<br/>“Vanessa…” he forgot his left from his right. He never expected her to return.<br/>She was stunning even as a vampire. <br/>_<br/>Just as a transformed Vanessa returns to Ethan, she disappears again. So begins the chase, and with it his doleful wonder:<br/>Does she love him? Is she just using him now that a hunter pursues her? And what of Dorian... stumbling back into Ethan's life the man sets in motion a tempest.<br/>Dorian wants Ethan back. Vanessa seems incapable of love. Ethan doesn't know which his soul craves- all he's come to understand is that he can't bear heartbreak another time.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dorethan - Relationship, Ethan Chandler &amp; Dorian Gray, Ethan Chandler &amp; Vanessa Ives, Ethan Chandler/Dorian Gray, Ethan Chandler/Vanessa Ives</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Stripped: Ethan and Dorian [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1763926</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>93</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Reunion of Friends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Dorian and Victor come in in later chapters, starting from the third.  And cue the homoerotic sexual tension!  Spoilers for the entire show by fic's end. The biggest change I made for the purposes of the story is there was a resolution at the end without killing Vanessa and darkness doesn’t take over the world (in my mind they killed Dracula full stop).<br/>She flees London and after a while the grief is too much for Ethan and he moves to the countryside. This is where this story begins.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Part 1</strong>
</p><p>Frothy fringes of the sea slapped against the weatherworn walls, caging them. Moments later they withdrew, only to return with the fury of a fiend on a full moon night, charging at the barriers that attempted to tame them.<br/>Nature’s beast they were. Roaring. Raging. Restless. Relentless.</p><p>The parallels were uncanny.</p><p>Uncanny because such a beast lurked within Ethan’s soul as well, restless and raging, thrashing against the confines he’d put in place. (Until it’d finally broken free when the desolation consumed him, dragging him out here to a coastal wilderness, chasing after its own path).</p><p>It had been a dull day two months earlier - a day orchestrated by fate’s hand, no doubt - when he’d taken Malcolm up on his offer.<br/>Perhaps the solitude had finally gotten to them both.<br/><br/><em>“This is an invitation, Dearest Ethan, to join me once again in London. Be my company and share in the pursuit of life’s finer pleasures- at least for as long as you can stomach it. I beg you. Come, fill these halls with laughter once more, I desperately need the distraction. Yours, Sir Malcom Murray"</em><br/><br/>A proposal Malcom had often presented him with, over the past months – an attempt to draw him out of his den, where he preferred whiling his time for reasons best left unnamed.<br/>Vanessa. The name could not be unbidden. <br/>The manor was so empty now without her. As was Ethan’s heart. That was the main reason Ethan had left in the first place. He couldn’t bear to materialize ghosts – to latch onto the desperate hope of her returning one day.<br/><br/>However, the week when Malcolm’s most recent message had arrived, it had been an unusually cold one, and his dreams of Vanessa plentiful; so he relented.</p><p><em>“A promise of nothing but good times, Ethan. Chatter over cards and wine. Perhaps hunting if the weather favours us,” </em>the letter had outlined further,<em> “a simple respite from the boredom of our existences.”</em> </p><p>Respite? If only he knew then how far from the truth that would be.<br/><br/>_</p><p>Dusk had crept in when he arrived at the manor, the streets of London nestled in the lap of an unearthly storm.<br/>No sooner had Ethan dismounted on the cobbled courtyard than his steed had erupted into an unsettling neigh and trotted back to the furthest wall of its stall, to huddle by the bales. He could tell cold was not what prompted that response from his sturdy Arabian- little did he know he was already being watched even then.<br/>His wolf instincts flaring his nostrils and the hair prickled on the back of his nape alerted him to something being awry.<br/>That image stayed on with him, like a small dot on the canvas of his memory, inconsequential yet indelible. It made his insides wring. </p><p>Settled into his chambers an hour later, Ethan caught up with Malcolm at supper. He’d not allowed himself to go there- into her old room- as he took his steps to the top of the stairs.<br/>The memory of what had transpired was still a wound so fresh it stung his soul and made him wince from irrevocable loss.<br/><br/><em>How can someone so minute leave such an incredible chasm with her departure?</em><br/><br/>Malcolm looked much like himself when he met him again in the drawing room. Except for the marked weariness on his countenance and a few more grey hairs in his mustache, that is. <br/>Ethan simply looked... done. <br/><em>But weren’t they all tired of this?<br/></em><br/>They embraced like the old friends they were, and Ethan wasn’t bothered it was the second one since he’d arrived.<br/>“I’ve missed you, Ethan,” Malcolm breathed into his collar, patting him on his back as he squeezed harder. Ethan sighed and smiled faintly, his dimples standing out in the low light. He had missed Malcom, too.<br/><br/>They had company at the dinner table - two other gentlemen from Malcolm’s social circle at the society, who’d caved-in to the lure of cognac and quadrille.<br/>Much to Ethan’s dismay, Victor was not in attendance. He’d been hoping to see him. Apparently the doctor was tending to family affairs in Wales. <br/><br/>The dinner was sumptuous, prepared by Malcolm’s new house keeper, Dierdre. The cognac was of fine quality. (Not that Ethan was choosy).<br/><br/>The laughter made for an agreeable diversion, and Ethan enjoyed the evening as far as a recluse would in the presence of newly formed acquaintances - until the amusement morphed into bawdy ribbing following a few chalices of the fine liquor.</p><p>“So,” Malcolm’s guest thumped his thick palm on his back at the end of the first round of quadrille - and Ethan knew trouble awaited him.<br/>“My esteemed colleague here tells me you’ve been living in the countryside, Ethan. Have you found yourself a good woman to settle down with?”</p><p>The controversial subject drew their attention away from the cards being redistributed. Malcolm tilted his head to one side, steeling a slanted look at his guest.<br/>His cheeks flushed scarlet. He prayed Ethan would forgive this intrusion.  <br/><br/>“Ethan is a happy bachelor, Edward.”<br/>“No woman?” the man replied, his enormous whiskers twitching.</p><p>“Nursing a broken heart, are you Ethan?” enquired the other man present.</p><p>For some ominous reason, the question fogged his expressions with a dark cloud, a cloud that took a while to lift. Heaviness made his shoulders sag.<br/>“No,” Ethan scoffed, trying to be polite as he cleared his throat. “Thankfully, my heart’s intact and beating well.”<br/>Reality was far from it, but none of these strangers needed to know that.</p><p>“What use is a handsome face then, son,” the older man of the lot, Edward Hickman, furrowed his bushy brow, “if you can’t use it to charm women into your bed?”</p><p>The remark spurred a burst of chuckles between the two interlopers.<br/>“Is everything in order?” They ran an unsolicited stare over the more intimate contours of his body, “or, we could recommend an excellent doctor we know?”</p><p>“All right, gentlemen. That will be all,” Malcolm sighed. “Leave the man alone.”<br/><br/>“It’s all right, Malcolm. No need to defend my honor.” Pushing his fresh pile of cards back, Ethan laid his empty chalice down. The brunt of the force with which the goblet landed seemed to shake the entire frame of the dark wood table, bringing the chatter to a quick halt.<br/>Ethan studied his shaky palms briefly; he’d forgotten the strength the tainted blood in his veins hid. It’d been a while since he’d been in a social gathering and self-restraint had evidently slipped his mind.<br/>“My apologies. I didn’t intend to...” his warm earth eyes creased at their corners.<br/>Malcolm raised a hand to bring attention back to himself. </p><p>“Our young man here has a temper.” Edward tried to defuse the awkward air with a smirk.</p><p>“Well,” Malcolm came away from his backrest, leaning in towards his colleagues. “A man who slams tables, and hunts animals, definitely has what it takes to sate a woman. I hope you’re convinced of that now, gentleman, and can leave the matter be.”</p><p>The ribbing resumed just as swiftly as it’d come to a halt as the spirits had already taken a hold on the men who apparently couldn't hold their drink. </p><p>“Since he appears far too gentlemanly to visit a whorehouse, I hedge his bets on the fact that he has a mistress.”</p><p>“And knowing your weakness for the fair sex, Malcolm, he’s probably kept her hidden from you.”</p><p>Another bout of salacious sniggers dominated the room.<br/><br/>Ethan had had just about enough. He rose from the table with a push of wood, shooting them a venomous look. Except for Malcolm, whom he addressed as he spoke. <br/>“Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me. I’m exhausted from my journey and I think I’ll retire.<br/>Malcolm, I shall see you in the morning. Thank you for the delightful evening.”<br/><em>Delightful indeed. </em><br/><br/>Letting them have their fun at the expense of his loneliness, he excused himself from the room, hoping to return to a few unfinished affairs before he retired for the night.</p><p>Ethan sauntered down the corridor, heading for the stairs. Gait slow from renewed weariness.<br/>Just as he crossed the lobby, a blistering gust swept in through the gaps of the main door, silencing the crackle of the parlour’s hearth.</p><p>And then, as if a higher power had snapped a finger, the wind stilled.</p><p>Once again the hair on the nape of his neck stood on end. His alert glances followed the path of that wayward blast, through the crack in the parlour door.<br/><br/>“Wh...” a sharp gasp pushed his lips apart. When he recognized her his heart stopped dead in his chest.<br/><em>It couldn't be! </em></p><p>By the hearth was the silhouette of a woman; tall and proud, in a becoming gown of navy and lace, posed with her slender hand on the mantelpiece like she was a sculptor’s muse.<br/>The curls she wore high above, in a top knot, glistened against the flickering flame, like raven’s feathers.<br/>She wore an aura of elegance that placed her in a realm that could not be earthly.<br/><br/>How could one so slender dwarf everything else around, until all that existed was the here, only them?</p><p>As if she hadn’t affected him enough already, she spoke.<br/>“My dearest Mr. Chandler. <em>Ethan</em>.”<br/>Their gazes met. Her eyes were smoky blue like a mystical ocean, sucking him into their depths. It wasn’t merely a dip or dabble. Ethan dove right in, even though he knew exactly what dangers lurked beneath them, and before he knew it, she’d helped herself to a part of his soul.</p><p>Vanessa took a step away from the mantelpiece - their spell still unbroken - and began gliding her feet his way till they paused behind the parlour door. In her presence, the faster his heart sped, the further the rest of him stiffened into a numb stupor.<br/><br/>“Vanessa…” he forgot his left from his right. She was stunning. </p><p>A quiet smile glossed her sharp features, features that appeared white as milk against the dark ruffles of her collar. However, only a fool would mistake that pallor for frailty.<br/>She exuded intensity from every ethereal cell of her body. An intensity that lit the cold wicks at the core of his chest, its heat spilling through his blood, to all corners of his body, including his groin. The longer they fed off each other, the further she fanned that fire.</p><p>Then, with no warning, she snapped the spell she’d conjured – by closing the door.<br/><br/><em>"What on earth was this?!"</em></p><p>Suddenly, he was a prisoner in his spot, and she held the keys to his release. </p><p>Part of him wanted to seize the handle and open it, his beats refusing to slow, aware that she was on the other side, they were mere inches apart. He could hold her again- kiss her!<br/>His hand darted forth, the compulsion consuming me.<br/>The mechanism wouldn’t bloody open.</p><p>
  <em>“What?”</em>
</p><p>If she’d lit his icy core, there had to be a fire within hers, too. His feral instincts could sense the sultry smoulders of it on her.<br/>Why had she come back now, after months of absence? And why show herself just to douse any chance of a connection?</p><p>Her voice giving birth to his name still caressed him. Would the silk of her skin feel the same within the gruffness of his palm, or would she be gelid to the touch now?<br/>His thoughts were spiralling faster than the loose wheels of a wagon, and he had to reign them in lest he crashed.</p><p><em>“Vanessa…”</em> After several barren instants had gone by, he finally released himself from the place. Little did he know that his sentence had only just begun! </p><p>_</p><p>The days that followed were torturous, to say the least. Now that he knew she had returned, his eyes would scour the gardens, the driveway, the stables, and the kitchens – only to uncover no sign of her. Apparently, a moment that was everything, was to be followed by days that were nothing.<br/>How many times indeed had Vanessa given only to take away.<br/><br/>It had become unbearable for him again, and Ethan decided he’d take his leave. Since he learned Victor was out of town and wouldn’t be back for another week, there was no reason left for him to remain under the current circumstances. His plan to visit with the young doctor would have to be postponed. The same with Dorian who was due back to London soon. <br/>Ethan simply couldn't stay. <br/>By the time he bid London farewell, Ethan was determined to reclaim some semblance of normalcy.</p><p>_</p><p>Weeks passed. </p><p>The farm he had let kept his days busy – until night would arrive and his journey through the after-dark would be riddled with shadowy visions of an ethereal face and bewitching eyes.<br/><br/>Like the pull of the moon, he couldn’t resist Vanessa’s.</p><p>He toiled away till he was sourcing twice as much oil to keep the lanterns burning. Ethan worked with wood till his palms were riddled with calluses. He used his love for hunting as a cure for his insomnia, unleashing his marksmanship (and on the full moon, his primal fury) in the wild.<br/>While his carnivorous appetite eventually grew weary of the killing, his soul was still hungry. Ethan was drowning in red; the red of blood, the red of rage, the red of unrequited passion.</p><p>So, as the gentlemen had suggested, when the heat in his loins could no longer be sated by rough fist, he went against his will and approached women in the nearby village, hoping the encounters would smother the embers of passion that was a conflagration within.<br/>He could not bring himself to bed them, though. Disgust coated his tongue at the thought.<br/>He’d heard of his ancestors – the wolf coven – being marked by their mates. Is that what’d happened to him? <br/><em>Was he mated to Vanessa?</em></p><p>Ethan avoided mirrors, for the reflection in them was an unsettling version of his old self. He used to be an actor minding his own life, conscientious and cautious. Until hell literally knocked at his door.<br/>He was beginning to despise her for what she’d reduced him to. Yet somehow, he couldn’t stop desiring her.<br/>Deliriously so.</p><p>Vanessa had awoken in him the need for a woman’s flesh - but only her flesh. Whether or not undead- she still breathed. She walked among men and she’d sought him out.<br/>A need to touch, to caress, to feel, to kiss, to taste, to mark her with fang as his own – and all manner of tender feelings he was all too familiar with, dizzied his focus.</p><p>“Infatuation…” he repeatedly brushed those pangs off; his mind would smirk back every time.<br/>"Love..." his heart told him. <br/>_</p><p>There came a day when the suffering overrode subsistence, and the beast he’d kept confined broke free with a deafening howl. He decided then that he had to know where she was.<br/>Vanessa Ives was pushing him closer to a precipice.</p><p>He found his reply not long after. A letter came, penned in Malcolm’s heavy hand.</p><p>
  <em>“It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform you that Mr. Hickman - the older gentleman you’d met at my residence – passed away recently, under very mysterious circumstances. He was found in his bed with bite marks on his neck. There was little blood, Ethan. I fear the creatures have returned to London.”</em>
</p><p>the creatures.<br/>Ethan dropped the parchment and it billowed before dropping to the desk. <br/>He’d left the rest of it unread.<br/>Not the creatures, he wanted to say. Just one. <br/><em>Vanessa.</em> <br/>A shocked instant later and enough time for him to gasp, his shoulders slumped against the leather in relief.</p><p>The troubled neighs of his horse.<br/>The haunting gust of wind.<br/>The lone sighting of her at the thick of night, and never since.<br/>And now Hickman’s death.<br/><br/>Vanessa had never left London. At least not until the murder.  </p><p>Ethan would follow the blood trail. It would take some time but he'd find her. <br/><br/>Little did he know then that the path would end with the salty soles of his shoes trawling through the coastline, towards the lone lighthouse sitting atop the cliff.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Reunion of Hearts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>While he wasn’t able to hear the thrums of her heart, he demanded that she hear his.<br/> “Can you hear how it pounds for you, Vanessa? Can you feel?” His eyes bore into her, wild with lust.<br/>_<br/>Ethan finds Vanessa.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Part 2</strong>
</p><p>His trek came to a halt at the top of the winding stairs of the abandoned lighthouse he knew had stood here for years. On the brass plate, dabbed with a generous splatter of verdigris, read the etched words “Officer’s Room.” <br/>With a sigh, he pushed the door open, its hinges groaning at the state of its rusting metal.<br/>It was about as old and tired as he felt.</p><p>The small room greeted him with the muggy scent of salt and wood, a scent that seemed to emanate from every hardbound book and hardwood furniture still left to suffocate the already cramped space. <br/>A tall window at the other end offered a dark backdrop of the inky cloak with which nightfall had dressed the skies, her svelte outline forming a stunning silhouette against that picture. <br/>The flurry of his thoughts fell silent. The resentment and rage that he’d been harbouring over the past weeks were forgotten when met with his reward at the end of the maze – her. <br/>Vanessa. <br/>Such was her lure.<br/><br/>Vanessa leaned a delicate shoulder against the ledge, admiring the sights beyond. He mirrored by the doorframe, admiring her.</p><p> “Vanessa.” <br/>“Took you a while…”</p><p>Amidst the pounding beats and howling winds, her tone was low, her voice ladylike. Yet, he could hear her words as if they’d been whispered by his ears. There was barely anything left of his resolve. <br/><br/>“You didn’t have to kill him. You could have just come.”</p><p>“He was a beast of a man, Ethan.” She turned towards him, revealing the glint in her midnight eyes. “And beasts deserve to be slaughtered.” <br/><br/>His heart stilled, and then, as if atoning for that pause, it began thrumming twice as fast. <br/>“He was unpleasant, I’ll admit.”</p><p>She threw her head back and laughed with abandon. By God, it almost felt like old times again, to see her face so lit with joy. <br/><br/>“Oh, you’ve no idea. I’ve missed you, Ethan.” <br/>“Vanessa,” he repeated under his breath, the name caressing his tongue like silk. He crossed the threshold onto the faded rug. There was a layer of dust on its woolen tufts except for where she has stepped - a sign she hadn’t been here very long. <br/><br/>“So besides a beast, what was Mr Hickman to you? A conquest? Or a means to reach out to me?”<br/>“Both.” Arrogance added colour to her otherwise bloodless smile. <br/>“I am aware of the vices that come with men’s innate nature. He was as easy to manipulate as soft butter, Ethan. And equally despicable. Did you know he liked small boys to do things to him? And women to watch? I did this world a favor.”</p><p>Her gaze, potent as scorpion venom, had him paralysed. <br/>Ethan played the willing victim, his umber eyes brimming with questions. She, on the other hand, had few answers to give. <br/>“You don’t show yourself to anyone unless they have a purpose for you, Vanessa. Why did you show yourself at Malcolm’s? Why then?”</p><p>“I sought Mr. Hickman… as a victim…” she clucked her tongue devilishly. “Research, call it.”</p><p>“And what about me?” it was barely above a whisper, his query. “Am I research? Am I your next kill?”</p><p>Vanessa strolled his way, one sly step at a time. She stopped a few feet short, as if she’d drawn a veil between them.<br/>A cold closed veil, keeping her out of reach. Ethan wanted to rip it apart with his claws, so he could hold her close. <br/>He would have, but the veil was intangible.</p><p>“I sought you… as an equal… as a lover. I sensed your strength still.” She paused. <br/>For the first time, he heard her sedate voice shake. <br/>“I am soulless, Ethan – or so I thought, until I saw you again.”</p><p>Pulse pounding hard, partly ecstatic, partly erratic. An equal? A lover? Was this a confession or a taunt? <br/>“Then, why wouldn’t you visit me sooner?” Fury skewed his voice into a low growl. “You must have known I’d been driving myself insane, searching for you…”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she smiled faintly. It was an empty, aloof smile. “I had been discovered…”</p><p>“Discovered how?” <br/><br/>When she wouldn’t answer, he erased the few feet between them by sidling up to her, taking delight in how his height shadowed hers - vain as it might seem. “Tell me more…”</p><p>“I fed on a man once, in a sordid back alley. I was spotted by another, a gentleman. Unfortunately, this man had caught me with one of my victims earlier. I recognized his scent. My doubts were confirmed when I received a threatening note at the gate of the abandoned home I was briefly staying in- it stated – ‘I know what you are, temptress’.” <br/>Her ample bosom rose and fell. “I was in danger. I couldn’t return and seek you out immediately. I was forced to wait, Ethan.”<br/><br/>Ethan listened with greater patience than he knew he had. She was speaking of ungodly crimes, but he couldn’t hate her for it. <br/>Each of them had their own beasts to conquer, and his wasn’t much tamer. <br/><em>“I am soulless, Ethan – or so I thought, until I saw you again.”</em> The words resonated- more than he’d care to admit.</p><p>“Vanessa…” his palm moved forth to pick hers up, but she wouldn’t allow them to connect. She was barely an inch away. Yet, it seemed, he would have to travel miles for a brush of her skin. <br/><br/>“I still love you, Vanessa…”</p><p>“Which is why we cannot be together.” <br/><br/>Ethan’s unaccepted hand curled into a ball, fingernails clawing into searing skin. <br/>“We are equals, in more ways than one. You said so yourself…”</p><p>“I am a vampire. Our union could make you one amongst the undead. And being—<em>what you are</em>- I cannot risk that…I don’t know what that would mean for you.”</p><p>She was not lying. However, the truth could not set free a man possessed. <br/>“You can’t make that decision for me. Only I can take that risk. And I will. I’m as good as dead without you anyhow, Vanessa. You’re the only thing giving me reason to breathe.”</p><p>Silence ensued. A loud silence that she put an end to, by lifting the invisible shield she wore, revealing the depth of her longingness for him. <br/><br/>“Mr. Chandler you’ve always had a way with words.”</p><p>“Vanessa,” he whimpered, a quiet wanton sigh behind it.</p><p>A draught seeped in through the gaps in the window pane, filling the room with a haunting melody.  The dim light in the lanterns broke out into startled flickers, as their delicate armour - bowls of glass - battled to keep the howling winds away. <br/>This was not the stillness before the storm. This <em>was</em> the storm – him and her.</p><p> _</p><p>Ethan reached for her, unwavering, scooping her palm up in his large hands. As he brushed her slender fingers, life returned to him.</p><p>The breaths that left his chest were fast and feverish, leaving a trail of red as it skimmed her white skin. She leaned in, restless as he was, offering herself; an tribute he seized with both hands by lacing them into her hair. <br/>She was a rosebud in his clasp, deceptively demure, stirring him to urge those petals into a bloom. <br/><br/>He shifted closer. “I have been imagining this moment for...” <br/>When his lips plunged down to flick past hers, he hadn’t expected a sip of ambrosia; but that was how she tasted. <br/>Addled by her essence, he plunged deeper; he didn’t mind being a drunk, he needed more. His rapture forced the seam of her lips apart, and she took all of him, deepening the bliss. </p><p>Her mania matched his, and with neither of them having to worry about hurting the other, a fierce dance ensued between their lips; a nip for a nip, a kiss for a kiss, a brush for a brush, a bite for a bite. <br/>He’d taken the lead, but she was the one guiding him by the end of it – granting him a brief glimmer of the strength contained within her. </p><p>The heat rushing down to his breeches urged his hungry digits down to her collar, unfastening her dress. The grand frock dropped to the floor, swiftly followed by her corset once he’d tugged the lace free. <br/><br/>Through her silken chemise he beheld the curves of her body that appeared to flow like milk; a more beautiful creation he would not witness. <br/>God Almighty, he’d missed her. <br/><br/>Desire knifed through him, a bitter sweet pain. And from the heaving of her breasts, he knew she shared his same tragic fate.<br/><br/>His callused palm and gruff jaws drew possessive paths down the arc of her neck, to her breast, serving a manly hunger to admire her womanly form, with caresses - tender caresses that turned torrid as they fuelled each other’s carnal cravings.</p><p>“Ethan...” She whispered hoarsely, holding him against her chest, bodies so close even wisps of air wouldn’t dare invade the moment. <br/>As his teeth sunk into the swell of her breasts, she demanded more by pillaging her nails through his locks, leaving long welts down the cords of his neck. <br/>The predator in him revelled in the sensation with a raspy grunt; it was not the first mark she’d left on him, nor would it be the last. <br/>The welts bore deeper, and deeper still, until the first droplet of sultry blood seeped through, evoking a stifled scream in her chest.</p><p>Ethan shuddered at the sound of her arousal and stalled for a breath; studying her, savouring <em>them</em>.</p><p>“Bloody Hell!” Their caged souls were unleashed in unison.</p><p>With the chains that’d held her back torn, and the seductress in her set loose, the intimacy descended into raw lust. <br/>She nudged the suit off his shoulders and forced him to the floor, onto the rug, her approach a stark contrast from the garb of Victorian poise that she otherwise wore. <br/>Her fingers tore their way through the fastenings of his shirt, riddling his skin with scratches in their reckless quest for a feel of his barren form.</p><p>And before he knew it his clothes lay aside in wild shredded piles, much like his own emotions.</p><p>She nudged aside the straps of her chemise, the lust in her eyes more naked than her form. As Vanessa knelt over him, flesh against flesh, her long luscious black hair spilled to her shoulders.</p><p>“Vanessa... fuck...” he roared at the pain of having his heart slamming against his ribs relentlessly. Splaying a firm hand on her back, he tugged her towards him, imprisoning her against his torso. <br/>While he wasn’t able to hear the thrums of her heart, he demanded that she hear his.</p><p> “Can you hear how it pounds for you, Vanessa? Can you feel?” His eyes bore into her, wild with lust.</p><p>“Ethan?” She read his ask with the unmasked pride of a temptress. She could have broken free, quite easily, but she granted him this moment of thrill and let his heart speak to her palm, its flustered beats groaning at what she was doing to him. <br/>“That feels wonderful,” her sapphire gaze gleamed like gems. “I like what I hear…”</p><p>As she straddled his raging erection, the agony coursing through his veins reached an unexplored crest. With a devilish grunt, he let his fingers rake over her slick folds, an eager explorer seeking his exotic treasure. <br/>“Stop,” she quivered in his clasp, allowing him the gift of that delightful picture, but nothing more. <br/>“Let me.”</p><p>Lowering herself onto his bleeding cock, he growled at the way her body swallowed his sex. <br/>It’d been so long! <br/><br/>She rode him slow, her hips moving in a rhythm she orchestrated. Prolonging their unison, her body paused and pulsed from one demonic peak to the next, higher and higher still. <br/>“Oh Ethan!”<br/>He lay there in a heady haze, while she used his body as her slave, realising an ecstasy she’d been deprived while depriving him the relief he sought in her deepest core. <br/><br/>The ordeal was worse than a splinter trapped in his flesh, one that she wouldn’t help him get rid of. But he harboured no complaint. For there was a kind of pleasure to be found in pain, the kind that could be described in neither song nor lore.  <br/>It could only be written in flesh.</p><p>Finally, when she’d had enough of slowing the intensity to a simmer, she impaled herself on him violently, his ribs beginning to feel the brunt of her voracious fury. The veins on his neck engorged from the sweet strain, their redness teasing her, toying with her innate impulses to have them torn by her fangs. </p><p>She licked her lips, glazing them with beads of desire. She was a woman parched, in a blistering desert, with a compelling wish to have her thirst quenched – his blood her only source of recourse. </p><p>“Arrrghhh.... Ethan!” She exclaimed and shifted her attention away from his neck, upwards at the peeling ceiling, her sky eyes wide with need. <br/>The force of her stormy passion doused the fire in the lanterns that the mighty howling winds had failed to. The surrounding flooring creaked, and the furniture rattled.</p><p>As he beheld his lover in her wildest throes, he noticed a lattice of blue veins spread across her cheeks. It dawned on him then that his months of suffering were trivial compared to the moments of torture she was enduring in the lead up to our crescendo. <br/>A torment that came from using up every ounce of her vampiric strength, so she wouldn’t suck the mortality out of him and spill her venom into his blood. So she wouldn’t turn him into her next victim, despite his willingness to be do just that: be taken.</p><p>It was clear she hadn’t sacrificed her whims and wants for any living creature before – after all, sacrifice went against the very essence of vampirism. Perhaps it was because he could give her what no earthly man could, and she wished to preserve this uniqueness. <br/>Perhaps it was something more- benign and beautiful. Either way, the emotions left her confounded, and she made love to him like a woman spurned and scorned. <br/>“Ethan… I’m coming Ethan!” she howled like a banshee.</p><p>His stomach tensed like cords of smooth steel when her sex clenched onto his, milking the orgasm from him. <br/>“Fuck,” was all he could manage, a myriad of familiar spasms letting forth his release. <br/>As they scaled the zenith, he growled, breaking out into one last explosive shudder. <br/><br/>It was a moment of rebirth; no earthly woman, no worldly sensation could fulfil him as deeply as the fulfilment he felt just then.</p><p>The aftermath of their lovemaking, his molten arousal, oozed into her, partly quenching her body’s thirst. She slumped onto him, gasping for breath in a way that let him believe her mortal form had been more spent than it’d ever been before.</p><p>They glowed like true lovers would, her beautifully cold skin wrapped in his warm perspiration. <br/>“Ethan,” she hummed nuzzling into the crook of his neck, while she gazed at his pulsing veins, running a sly fingertip along them. <br/>He was more than aware of the precarious nature of her proximity, of how his existence was teetering between life and death. <br/>Yet, the sensations of her touch painted a smile onto his lips, his first true smile in ages.</p><p>It made him wonder who held greater power over whom. Maybe there was no answer to that query. For they truly were equals; two kindred bodies, two kindred spirits. In fury and in love. <br/><br/>Now the question remained: would she stay? What did the future hold for them?</p><p>_<br/><br/>Back in London, a knock disrupted Malcolm Murray’s supper. <br/>Dierdre let the stranger into the foyer, the Irish lilt to her voice very much echoing her disapproval through the halls. <br/>“Normally one calls ahead, sir. Sir Malcolm is a busy man. And at this hour no less, Jesus and Mary.” <br/><br/>The stranger held out his hand, a gaze more severe darkening his visage Malcolm had yet to see. <br/>“What can I help you with, sir? Why call at this hour?” Malcolm was visibly annoyed. <br/><br/>The man pursed his lips, black eyes two pin points focused on the man before him. <br/>“I’m sorry to disturb you so late and unannounced. But it's urgent. I’m looking for Ethan Chandler. I believe you might know where he is?” <br/><br/>Malcolm’s eyebrow arched and worry creased his mouth into a frown. <br/>“What’s this about? Who are you?”<br/><br/>“I’m Thomas Keely. A vampire hunter.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Stay tuned for more! :) Thanks for reading.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Reunion of Lovers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Dorian Gray pays an unexpected visit to Ethan's farm. Vanessa's intentions may not be true.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Chapter 1</strong>
</p><p>Through the slimmest slit of the curtain, a beam of sunlight let itself in. With a semi-open eyelid, he peered at it, like one would at an uninvited guest. Closing his eyes a moment, he leaned back, letting it play across his face.<br/>As its glow diffused on them, he rolled over and drew her closer. Ethan studied the woman next to him- peaceful as a placid lake at dawn - tucked into the crook of his neck.</p><p>Her face was poetry, each feature a different verse on beauty. Sheathed in an aura of bliss, her body was still coiled in his; the vision of their entanglement was alluring, almost lyrical in its harmony.<br/>His hand - the one she’d chosen for a pillow - had turned to stone. It told him that she’d let him wrap her in his embrace all night, even though she needed no arm around her to keep her safe.<br/>A roll of tender breaths left his lips as he beheld her, naked and vulnerable.</p><p>Vulnerable? The thought nudged a smirk on his handsome face.<br/>Vanessa Ives was the most formidable female roaming the Earth. A lone drifter of cold shadowy streets until he’d met her once more, and now she was sharing his bed.<br/>Perhaps he erred. Perhaps it was the way he’d been raised, or his naturally protective nature. But Ethan wanted - perhaps needed – her to be cared for by him with every feral fibre of his being. And while he was drawn to her strength - a beast to its beast mate - the man in him could not help but play champion.<br/><br/>Which was why the idea of a hunter on her trail had him riding his grounds thrice a day, on the prowl for scents unfamiliar. It had him flexing his knuckles so often, feeling them for his claws, it was as though he’d developed a nervous tic.<br/>Fist clenching and unclenching.<br/>Nose to the air, nostrils flared in an incessant sniff.<br/>They could have sheltered elsewhere - a manor in the Dales, or a barn in the Highlands. But neither would be his home. This was his castle, his den. He knew its ins and outs. No intruder would dare wander by his gates and leave with their foot-treads unnoticed.</p><p>A low whimper slipped out of her pale lips, ending those loud thoughts in his head.<br/>Barely a whimper and he could hear nothing else. Could a man be more besotted?<br/>A moment later, she unwound her limbs and a lazy shiver rolled over her, an exotic raven quivering awake in its nest.<br/>Ethan’s breath quickened.</p><p>“Good morning.”</p><p>“To you, too.” Her smile stretched slowly, inviting him for a kiss. He happily obliged.<br/>Their lips tussled for affection, while his palms strayed down, fondling the swell of her breasts that were tucked into the valley of his chest.<br/>As he reached for their erotic tips, already hard, she groaned against him, a threatening groan, lest he didn’t finish what he’d just started.<br/><br/>Holding in an inhale, his skin instantly flushed. He hurled back the sheets and shifted on top of her. A slave to her desire, Ethan perched on his knees, his amber-speckled eyes speaking a carnal language.<br/>Vanessa stiffened as he kissed the silken dip between her breasts, travelling down her midriff. His fangs nipped at the soft flesh beneath her navel till tiny bruises didn’t surface from the attention.<br/>As he propped her legs gently apart, desire shuddered through his core. The smell of her flower spiked heat into his member.<br/><br/>His lips pursued her soft entrance, their moistness blending to conjure feverish sensations in her writhing form. His name curled up in her throat, a euphoric choke, while her nails clawed at the base of his head, urging him on.<br/>Velvet strokes of his tongue, lapping at the swollen petals, edged her to a frenzy. Pleasure arched her petite body, demanding every shred of his primal strength to pin her flat.<br/>Ethan continued his ministrations, the slow penetration of his muscle into her depths also bringing forth an unbearable tension between his legs.</p><p>“Yes!” her guttural shriek drowned the creaking of the bed frame, while her whole body shook to a delirious orgasm.</p><p>Pushing his face into the origin of her wetness, he only came up for air when her lashes reopened, her pasty cheeks puffed with a sedate smile.<br/>“Ethan Chandler.”<br/>Her voice was still hoarse with sleep. She reached down and pinched his wet chin. “Continue bribing me with such gifts every morning… and I might have to let you live a little longer.”</p><p>What?<br/>He faltered.<br/>“I see,” he frowned, sliding up to her. His reason competed with his throbbing cock and his lungs still gasping for air. What on earth?!<br/>“What did you mean by that?”<br/><br/>He tucked back a lock that was obscuring his glance. A clouded, puzzled look took over his visage.<br/>She looked as if she were weighing the question. There was a murkiness to her eyes, turning them almost cobalt.<br/>“It was a joke, darling. You know I’m not quite done with you, Ethan. I wouldn’t dare hurt you.”<br/>Was that a flicker of mocking amusement in her expression?<br/><br/>He sat up on his haunches, the moment broken.<br/>“So when I’m not useful to you anymore you’ll just get rid of me?”<br/>One eyebrow arched and when he saw her expression mold into a smirk, his jaw tensed.<br/><br/>Trying to salvage the moment, she let out a hearty chuckle. “Why do you ask that?” Vanessa’s fingers crawled down the trail of hair beneath his navel, caressing his member. “Because I’m a vampire I can’t appreciate the worth of a life?”</p><p>He shifted on the bed, out of her reach. His cock bounced in the air as he stood.<br/>Every neuron in him was firing. Dropping his lashes quickly to hide the hurt, he answered in a whisper, “Perhaps.”</p><p>“I see the face of men I’m about to claim,” she mouthed like a tease. “I study my prey. If I wanted you dead, I’d have had a hundred occasions to do it by now. Do you honestly think, Ethan, I’ve stayed to do some form of research on you?”<br/><br/>He didn’t know what to believe. She’d been here a while, but the past week she’d been behaving oddly. Walking off into the fields for hours. There was one day they barely exchanged two words. She was adrift on her boat and it was receding into the horizon. <br/>And today… today was the first time he perceived an obvious change in her. As if a steely cold had crept into her dead heart.<br/>Had she just been pretending because she needed a place to hide? Did she really feel nothing for him while he was falling slowly in love with her?<br/><br/>“You tell me.” He peered into her sparkling pupils, his reflection crystallised in each facet. However, just as his heart was about to drink poison to that moment, they were interrupted by a few muffled sounds, out in the distance. The sound of carriage and hooves.</p><p>“Someone’s here.”</p><p>He sprung in place and came away, the final nail in their passion’s coffin hammered. Ethan grabbed his breeches, his erection still stirring in complaint from being deprived of its rightful release. Unfortunately, his needy sex and his brain were not on the same page. Right now, being intimate with Vanessa was the furthest thing from his mind.<br/>As Ethan swiftly slipped into his trousers, he could tell that the voices on their way to his gate were not unfriendly. In fact, he thought he heard the frisky ruffle of a skirt, too.</p><p>Hastening towards the window proved his hunches right.<br/>“Oh!” his stiff shoulders slackened, and a wide grin creased his features. The crinkling around his eyes softened. “Well I’ll be damned. Look who’s here.”</p><p>“Who is it?” In one demure sweep, she drew up the sheets to her neck, wrapping her hands around her knees, reminding him of the lady he’d met so long ago at Malcolm’s.<br/>A woman who still had emotions. A soul. Who was perhaps still able to love.<br/>Their entire conversation had soured his mood, and one quick jab in his mind reminded him how much he missed <em>that </em>Vanessa<em>.<br/></em>It was literally a lifetime passed.</p><p>“Our dear friend Dorian Gray… along with his latest conquest… or fancy. You know Dorian, I recall.”</p><p>She did. Quite well. Biblically. Perhaps Ethan didn’t know to what extent and for now, seeing as the tension in the room was palpable, that was for the best.<br/>“My word, Mr. Gray? Why it’s been ages!” she feigned joy at the unexpected arrival but everything in her movements, from the way she touched her neck to the stiffened posture of her straight spine, spoke to her being distinctly uncomfortable.</p><p>“Yes, one could say he’s an old friend.” Ethan shivered in anticipation. His skin suddenly burned from the memory of Dorian’s lips… his hands… his spend coating their…<br/>There was an unsteady dip in his voice, a giveaway. What he wasn’t telling her as well, but that she immediately picked up on, was that Dorian was not <em>just </em>a friend – he’d been a past lover, too.</p><p>“Dorian?” A hint of intrigue sharpened her tone. A wag to her head, her inky locks grazing the tips of her shoulder blades, she let a smirk build over her mouth. “You never cease to surprise me, Ethan,” she admitted.</p><p>Her brows narrowed over the darkening speckles in her pupils, and when Ethan swiveled in place - a small rustle of fabric disturbing the quietness of his chest, he found she was at a breath’s distance from him.<br/>The apricot blush to his face spoke volumes, and so did her gaze.<br/>It was useless for him to deny it.<br/>“I was never closed off to new experiences. That shouldn’t surprise you. Dorian and I had a connection, yes.”</p><p>
  <strong>Chapter 2</strong>
</p><p>Assuming an unhurried gait, he strolled into his receiving room, his eyes following the trail of a slender shadow lurking at its centre.</p><p>“Dorian Gray as I live and breathe.”<br/>A smile slipped through, an unwitting effect of just being in the man's presence.</p><p>“Ethan Chandler.”<br/>Dorian abandoned an old vase he’d been inspecting, replacing it on the mantel. He approached him with measured steps, though the wicked grin and libidinous stare clued Ethan to something entirely the opposite of restrained: Dorian hadn’t forgotten him. Hadn’t forgotten their escapades. That desire still burned steadily.<br/>This truth sent tremors of delight through the wolf, and in a sensation all too familiar, he felt helpless towards his wily charms.<br/><br/>“Please, Dorian, make yourself at home. I’m sorry I didn’t come and greet you immediately. I was in a state of undress when you arrived. I trust that Thomas was gracious.”<br/>Thomas, the neighbor’s boy who helped Ethan on the farm from time to time. He’d been mucking the stable when Dorian’s coach pulled up, and Dorian had signaled to him to let his guests in.<br/><br/>Dorian touched his elbow lightly, and his ivy gaze snaked down from Ethan’s honey eyes to his cerise lips.<br/>Ethan’s heart fluttered wildly in his breast. One piercing inspection from his ex-lover and he was puddy. What was happening to Ethan lately?!<br/><br/>“He was positively charming, Ethan. Is he one of your…?” His dainty nose twitched, and a smirking wink followed.<br/><br/>“Oh… oh no,” Ethan stuttered. The unwelcome stain to his cheeks was embarrassment and certainly not attraction. Thomas was barely 18 and more likely than not still a virgin. He wouldn’t dare think of such a thing.<br/>“He’s just a neighbor’s son, looking to make some coin. When I go off hunting or I have… other matters to attend to… he takes care of the livestock and makes sure the place doesn’t burn down. Keeps away the curious passer-by.”<br/><br/>Dorian licked his bruised, grape-pulp lips and sighed. “I see. You always were… <em>proper</em> … weren’t you, my dear sweet Ethan?”<br/>At hearing his name said like <em>that,</em> he almost let out a low growl, and its stifle made Dorian inch closer. A curled finger hooked into his collar, lightly brushing the spare of skin and coffee hair peeking from above its stitching.<br/><br/>Blood pounded in his brain. The provocation was there, Dorian was about to part his lips… and Ethan coughed.<br/>“How is Malcom these days?” he scrambled to change the subject, even though they hadn’t been discussing anything.<br/><br/>The extended hand retracted. For now, Dorian thought. He certainly didn’t want to make Ethan feel uncomfortable.<br/>“He sends his regards. I sent word of my coming, Ethan. I am not so rude as to appear at one’s residence unannounced. However, there was a terrible storm…”<br/><br/>“I remember… two days ago. Almost took out some crop.”<br/><br/>Terrific shakings of the head and an angled look brought Dorian to step back. “I will never get used to you chattering on about agriculture, my dear. Still, it suits you.”<br/>The accompanying look was unwavering, and when Ethan said nothing, fighting off a frightful flush, he continued.<br/>“Anyway, as I was saying. I had sent a messenger who not hours later returned to my doorstep, soaked to the bone claiming impossibility of safe delivery. I do apologize, dearest Ethan. I hope my visit doesn’t fall at a bad time.”<br/><br/>While everything about Dorian Gray outwardly appeared measured and some could say… cold, Ethan was all about impulsivity and heat. Together they were a lovely painting indeed, a chiaroscuro masterpiece.<br/><br/>Even now, asking forgiveness for something that was trivial… Dorian stood with hands entwined and a softness of expression, while Ethan’s strained features poorly hid his attempt to douse the fire in his blood.<br/><br/>For Ethan, this was his nature.<br/>Dorian Gray, instead, strived to maintain a control over his persona and his affairs out of necessity. He had secrets that needed tending. That need for perpetual discipline spilled over into the rest of his life.<br/>Be it the crisp suit that draped his shoulders with not a stray crease in sight, or the manner in which each length of his trimmed ebony locks framed his face perfectly- never a hair out of place except during sex, of course.  <br/>Even the compliments he proffered, or the smile with which he did so… the man was a veritable ode to measured perfection.</p><p>On the inside, he was anything but, and Ethan was the only one who’d come closest to discovering that about him. He’d been allowed to know his truth because in Ethan he found a kindred monster.  <br/>Dorian’s sat in a secret room in his manor. Ethan carried his within himself, let out of its cage once every lunar cycle.<br/><br/>So Dorian’s soul - if that was what the crevices of his chest nursed - was wilder than a tempest.  A tempest that claimed any victim who incidentally or intentionally crossed its path. A ravenous, lustful storm wreaking havoc on many a life, with little care for the trail of destruction it left in its wake.<br/>Riding it willingly with Dorian Gray was not for the faint of heart. Hell, Ethan was a beast and even he hadn’t escaped unscathed, bearing a few wounds from their romantic endeavours that were still gaping.<br/>Still fresh. So fresh his tongue brought to life the briny taste of Dorian’s spend.<br/>Licking his lips, a breath caught in Ethan’s chest.<br/>Needless to say, whenever he met this amazing man, his reactions were invariably a haunting mix of both a welcome smile and a wary attraction.</p><p>“You’ve come at a perfect time. And you’re always welcome here, you know that. Announced or not.”<br/>Now it was Dorian’s turn to blush. “I appreciate that, Ethan. You know I extend the same to you at Gray Manor. Honestly, I dropped by to ensure all is well. You’ve kept yourself hidden in your den longer than you generally do. It was my and Sir Malcolm’s bidding to call on you.”<br/><br/>His disapproving stare combed through his Victorian parlour - which, while not a reflection of opulence and frills, was suitably sized and sufficiently furnished. Then again, Dorian believed anything less than the finest was … mediocre.<br/>“Malcom told me that you have become even more of a recluse lately - as if that is even possible. And yet… it’s true.” The phrase was accompanied with a twirl of hand and a lilt to his voice.</p><p>“Ha! Trust our friend to faithfully continue keeping the society’s gossip mills spinning.” Ethan shook his head. “Shall I pour you a drink?”</p><p>“Ethan, what has become of you? It’s barely noon,” Dorian sneered. A second later, mischief gleamed in his eyes, and he advanced further, almost into Ethan’s shadow.<br/>Taking in his scent, it brought the aristocrat back to rumpled bedding and soft moans and…<br/>“Of course you may. One for me, and one for my companion, Anne.”<br/><br/>His palm sailed towards the hallway.<br/>“Anne, darling, would you join us?”<br/>It was then that the wolf noticed his companion, a woman, standing at the threshold. Indeed, he remembered hearing the skirts and there was an underlying fragrance when he walked in.<br/>Distracted so by Dorian it had been put out of his mind.<br/><br/>“Come here. Join us.”</p><p>She did, in a gentle glide towards the centre of the parlour, engaging him with a polite smile.<br/>“I do apologize. I took advantage of the lavatory. It’s so pleasant to have a separate room for such things. I needed the freshening up.”</p><p>“No worries, ma’am. Welcome to my humble abode,” the remark hitched in his throat.<br/>Anne was not the giggly Knightsbridge highborn out to defy her prudish parents. Nor was she a lowly prostitute from the back alleys of East End.<br/>In fact, she fit none of the archetypes that generally formed a part of Dorian’s harem.<br/><br/>In her thirties, she’d aged well, her cheeks peachy, her lips colored crimson.  The trims around her sleeves were simple, speaking of a woman who didn’t spend every waking hour fretting about frivolous silks. But her bodice was fitted cleverly enough to entice a man with the curves of her waist and the arc of her breasts. With a dash of wisdom adding colour to her attitude, she was evidently one of the better women with whom Dorian kept company.</p><p>That said, his admiration of her was chaste, celibate even. The brief encounter only reinforced what he already knew - Vanessa Ives had sunk her fangs into him deep, its tip reaching right down to the aching core of his chest.<br/>And seeing Dorian again sent him back to times when blood pulsed and gazes smoldered. Memories of their nights together had stirred his sex… and Dorian and he had but spoken. If they were to…<br/><br/>A breath doused in desire escaped Ethan’s mouth, and to be honest he wasn’t sure for whom it teased more, Vanessa or Dorian.</p><p>Opening the decanter, he poured three drinks, handing them their glasses.<br/>“Thank you, sir,” she received it with a sweet nod.</p><p>“Ethan.”</p><p>“Thank you, Ethan.”</p><p>“Wait… what do I see here?” Dorian interrupted them, inching closer. Any excuse to touch Ethan. “We’ve only just left behind winter… yet your cheeks… are pink like a schoolgirl’s…”<br/><br/>He grabbed his jaws and turned his face right and then left, studying the man through the amused lens of a hedonist, while his heady fragrance filled the wolf’s lungs.<br/>“What’s the secret?” Dorian’s brow scooted up to his hairline. He partially knew the answer- or at least he hoped to.</p><p>“Love,” Anne hummed, twirling the glass between her fingers, “your friend is in love.”<br/>A closer study, her bright eyes squinting… and she added, “He’s actually smitten with… a woman <em>and </em>a man. His heart, like his loins, are torn in two directions.”</p><p>“What?” Ethan quipped, a tendril of panic seizing him. His offended stance was a poor attempt to mask the truth.<br/>He barely had time to deal with this new chapter of his life. To have a stranger announce it, so candidly at that, was an event he wasn’t prepared for.</p><p>“Love? My dear Ethan in love? And with <em>two </em>people?” Dorian’s smile broadened. “That would explain a lot – the prickle on your skin for starters.”<br/><br/>Ethan’s eyes widened, with white showing around the whole iris. His legs would not stop shaking in his breeches. “She exaggerates.”</p><p>“She is a medium. A most powerful one at that,” Dorian clucked his tongue. “She does not exaggerate nor lie.”<br/>So perhaps there was hope for them after all?</p><p>His glance turned leery, skulking towards her, as if a different woman now stood in her spot. One he had to have his guard up against. Get out of my head, he wanted to shout.</p><p>“Want to hear something more?” she teased.</p><p>“Humor us, Anne.” Dorian was all but wringing his hands together in delight.</p><p>“Well,” she stretched the word out to conjure a suspenseful moment, “the woman that occupies his thoughts now occupies his home, too. I can feel her presence here… around…” she lifted her face to the ceiling, and dragged her eyelids to a dramatic close, “and it is unlike any other living presence I’ve felt before. And the other…”<br/>Anne pursed her cupid-bow mouth. A mere moment later they popped open, boring straight into Dorian. “The other is <em>you</em>, darling.”<br/><br/>A white-knuckled grip on his glass, Ethan’s jaw dropped. How could she know? How could she read the confusion of his heart?!</p><p>“Well well. Unlike anyone else?” Dorian laughed, ignoring for the time being the obvious confirmation that he was the other third of this somewhat pernicious triangle.<br/>He took a sip, his rings glimmering in the sunlight that was pouring through the window.<br/>“Now, we have to meet her. Come come… where do you have her tucked away, Ethan?”</p><p>“Was I mistaken, or did someone just mention me?”<br/>He spun around to spot Vanessa standing by the door, the aura in the room instantly stirring up an erotic tingle.</p><p>“Vanessa Ives,” Dorian nodded, somehow not at all surprised. A gentleman’s welcome as he bowed, he was grateful she was well. Hadn’t he heard rumors that she had met with some untimely demise? Regardless, this wasn’t the time to broach the subject. It was obvious it had been rumor, for here she stood.<br/>They had had some good times, she and he.</p><p>Her glorious glances had already left him though, on their regaled way towards his friend’s face. And therein, her eyes came to a pause.</p><p>A pause that Dorian welcomed with a tempting tilt of his mouth.<br/>“Vanessa Ives,” he uttered smoothly, making love to the name. “This is Anne Farrow. <em>A friend</em>.”<br/><br/>Their merged stares mingled in female wonder - the two men in the room inadvertently left out.<br/>Ethan felt the rustling again, disturbing the quietness of his chest – more intensely than ever before. Partial guilt, partial jealousy. For his guest’s smitten stillness reminded him of his own, during his first fated glimpse of Vanessa at the Murray manor.</p><p>Dorian sidled up to him, his heart wide open. Chinking their glasses together, he pressed his arm against the firmness of the wolf’s.<br/>In what was barely a whisper, as he brought the rim to his lips, he uttered<br/>“My dearest Ethan. ‘Tis a shame you don’t have any absinthe. For a nod to old times.”<br/><br/>Ethan’s insides wrung, torn between seeing Vanessa with Anne, and the spurt of hungry desire spiraling through him just by having Dorian so near, mentioning that fateful rendezvous.<br/>He spat it out before he could stop himself. “I’ve never forgotten that first night, Dorian.”<br/>He didn’t even know why he confessed this… but this is what Dorian did to him. Made him forget himself.<br/><br/>A lift of the chin in the direction of the two women, and an arm slinking around Ethan’s back, open palm landing unabashedly on his right ass cheek, Dorian squeezed the marbled muscle.<br/>The wolf’s groin tightened and breath caught in his throat. Dorian’s body positively <em>ached</em> for his touch and he wasn’t shy about it, letting a low whimper escape his chest when Dorian’s arm sailed over.<br/>The way they stood, one would have to be behind them to see the stolen affection.<br/>Ethan dragged his nails up his nape and raked gently into Dorian’s silky mane. The ghost touches their shared recollection made their flesh tingle.<br/><br/>Dorian stiffened both shoulder and sex. Bending his head so his cheek rested against Ethan’s bicep, he murmured, “That night is etched onto my skin, Ethan. As were the ones after. Though the scars may have healed, your scent, your claws, your flavor as I drank from you… it’s all still seared in my memory.”<br/><br/></p><p>
  <strong>Chapter 3</strong>
</p><p>“So how long have you been back? How long have you been together?” His query was intended for Vanessa. His gaze was only for Ethan.</p><p>“I had left London for a time. I… needed to get away. I roamed about here and there. Inevitably, London called me back. Let’s just say I sought Ethan out,” she cleared her throat before she could explain, “and the rest is…”</p><p>“History?” Dorian smirked.</p><p>“Not quite,” she flashed him a mysterious grin, fanning his curiosity. “It’s been but a few weeks I’ve been here... hasn’t it, Ethan?”</p><p>“I guess,” he murmured, pouring himself the third glass of drink. Or was it the fourth?<br/>“How lovely,” Anne chimed in, leaning closer to Vanessa and stroking her arm over her lace.<br/><br/>Ethan stirred in his place, had tried breaking the revelry, suddenly not feeling social. Especially with the way Vanessa and Anne were eyeing one another.<br/><br/>He was also angry and disappointed in himself. He was aware that he had no rights over her, nor did she over him. He himself was battling a renewed flame of interest in Dorian.<br/>But the idea that she’d been using him- that he’d been blind enough to believe that someone like her could open herself enough to find attachment and fondness for him.<br/>What a fool he’d been.<br/><br/>Now Ethan sat brooding. He was trying to decipher if he wanted to be alone… or to be alone with Dorian.<br/>He failed at tempting his guest with a game hunt (and immediately after he thought to himself that seeing Dorian with a rifle, sporting drab clothing and muddied boots would have indeed been ridiculous).<br/>Unfortunately, the trio were far too enthralled in their conversations to be lured away.<br/><br/>Vanessa and Anne – there was a shifting feeling there. It sparked in the air between them.<br/>So, he grabbed his glass and took his spot on the armchair in their midst, his legs sticking forward, occupying as much ground between them as he could. He knew he wasn’t the statue of magnificence that Dorian was. If anything, he probably resembled a crude, animalistic ogre. But if not an animal, who was he?</p><p>“So…” Dorian scratched the stem of his glass. “Any particular reason why you sought him out?”</p><p>“Ethan is…” Vanessa stopped, and with it, his breathing stopped, too. What lie was she going to spin now?  “Special. He’s been very kind to help me with a problem I’m having.”</p><p>He exhaled again, his slumped shoulders straightening up. And there it was. Had there really been something between them, she would have confessed to the like, right?<br/>He lifted his chin at her with politeness. <em>“Thank you.”</em></p><p>Alas, the moment wasn’t meant to improve.</p><p>“Why,” Anne shrugged, “I think you’re quite special yourself, Vanessa.”</p><p>“Thank you.” She tried to temper the shade on her cheeks - and failed quite noticeably.</p><p>Damn.<br/>Jealousy stabbed him – again. Dorian sat but a foot from him, amused to no end, and here he was steaming.<br/>Why? He knew better. Why?<br/>It wasn’t the quick stab of a butcher’s knife. It was slow and torturous, like a penknife being driven through him – its edge twisting with every compliment she paid her, its tip turning with every shade of colour that resurfaced on her skin.<br/>“I think… we probably… must…”</p><p>“Dorian, darling,” Anne’s bold call muffled her broken stutters. “She is different.”  Her head swung over as if pulled by a string.</p><p>“Different?” his friend rubbed the bottom of his liquor-tainted lip. “I am not going to argue with that, my dear.”</p><p>Anne let out a low, dismissive laugh. “That is not what I meant. She is different <em>from the rest of us</em>. Different enough to have a hunter chasing her as furiously as a rabid dog chases its prey. He sensed her bloodthirst while we rode here.”</p><p>Dorian slowly sat up, placing the chalice on a side-table with little regard for where it landed. Now this was getting interesting. Could this be the reason behind her leave from London’s grey embrace?<br/>“Vanessa Ives. Did you break a man’s heart? Or steal someone’s fortune?”<br/>His lashes unfurled in amazement. “Wait… it has to be something more interesting than that – if a hunter goes through all that effort. Murder? Revenge? Come now… spill.”</p><p>“None of those mundane guesses would justify her story.”<br/>Anne crossed her dainty palms on her lap as though she’d finished some tea.</p><p><em>“What does she know?”</em>  Ethan read her calm face intently, but the woman had nothing to say for many moments, her silence stretching his nerves out on a rack.<br/>“Dorian,” he disguised the awkwardness with a laugh, in an attempt to protect Vanessa and her dark reality. “I think you’re letting your fascination for the macabre get the better of your senses. <em>Have you been reading those Penny Dreadfuls again?</em>”</p><p>“Shhh Ethan… let her speak.”</p><p>And Anne finally did - spilling out her secrets faster than a drunk in a whorehouse. Leaning forwards for effect, her voice lowered to something barely above a whisper.<br/>“My guess is that Vanessa Ives is not one of them, not one amongst humankind.”</p><p>A flummoxed beat passed.</p><p>Then, two.</p><p>Ethan chased Vanessa’s expressions while she chased Anne’s. Dorian’s flitted between them all.<br/>Vanessa, however, was far from flummoxed. If anything, Anne’s eyes glistened alive, lit by new shades of sin, and it was something that was driving Vanessa wild.<br/>“What are you saying, Anne?”</p><p>“That you walk amongst the undead.”</p><p>“From which damned fire of hell, did you manage to unearth that?”<br/>Vanessa forced a smile. Her voice, however, was a low growl, emanating from the undermost depths of her chest. “That too, without a crystal ball or a tarot card? With neither a seance nor occult stones?”</p><p>Unfazed, Anne led her hand up to the base of her throat. Then, she drew in a profound surge of air, until the surrounding space went visibly clear and crisp. “I sense neither a pulse nor a soul in you. You have far too much blood in your veins to be a phantom or a rotter… so, I declare with quiet confidence that you are Vampire. The hunter probably seeks you in the hope that you’d lead him to a coven… but do you have a coven, or are you a lone drifter?”<br/><br/>She scoffed, a muted self-assured scoff breaking the silence from the others. “I’d hedge my bets on the latter which is why you seek a beast - mostly for company, but partly for protection too.”</p><p>Vanessa stood up, her newly assumed persona a whole seeming foot taller than she otherwise was. “For protection, did you say?”<br/>Ethan swallowed hard.<br/>Her pupils turned cryptic and cold, two rare sapphires at the bottom of the ocean. Her womanly pride was being provoked, her vampiric strength was being challenged, and she didn’t take kindly to either form of assault – much less, from a human.</p><p>Ethan promptly rose to his feet and approached her in reassurance - a confrontation in his modest parlour would be unwise, if not outright dangerous.</p><p>However, much to his dismay, his friend beat him to it.</p><p>“Heartless and soulless, did you say?” Dorian grinned from the comfort of his chair, his lips still suggestively agape, “Why, Vanessa Ives, I think I might be in love with you, too!”</p><p>“Oh.” Her temper waned as quickly as it’d waxed strong, warmth thawing her frosty skin again. “Thank you, Dorian. That is quite the compliment.”</p><p>The bastard! First Anne and now him?! He didn’t even have to move a meagre muscle – his charming words were plentiful.</p><p>“Dorian.” Ethan approached him in one swift stride, his hardened glare boring right through his cloud of indifference. “A moment, please? I’d like a word.”</p><p>It took him a deliberately good while to heed his request, a rush of heat to his blood having nothing to do with the whiskey in his tumbler.<br/>Once he joined him in the study, Ethan wasted little time.<br/><br/>“What do you think you’re doing?”</p><p>He skimmed around the study like he knew not what he was doing. “What do you mean?”</p><p>Oh, that dratted smug look. If only there existed a formula to wipe it off. “You know of my feelings for her. I’ve never meddled in your affairs before. Hell,” his jaw clenched hard till his gums went numb. “I have been a part of them, a casualty of them. What are you and Anne really doing here? Do you both want her?”</p><p>He clicked his tongue, making a cocky sound. “She is not your chattel. Are you not man enough to admit that the woman has agency? She clearly has a connection with her.”</p><p>A stunned breath later, he smacked his knuckles on the wall behind him, a small spider crack emerging on the plaster – as if that display of strength would prove he was more of a man than he could ever be.<br/>“You don’t stand under my roof and get to talk to me that way, Dorian.”</p><p>Unsurprisingly, he didn’t even bat his curly lashes. “Temper temper my dear. Tch… tch…”  He bent forward. “Although that is the color I like best on you: passion.”</p><p>“Spare her, spare her from your debauchery.”</p><p>“She is not your wife. What she chooses to do is her business.”</p><p>“I love her.”</p><p>“And yet she doesn’t love you.” His features were awash with a fresh haze of defiance, taunting an already tormented man. “And I think the whole reason behind your anger is that you know she doesn’t.”</p><p>A hundred furious words lingered at the tip of his tongue, waiting to lash back at him.<br/>Ethan’s lips tremored under the weight of their fury, but he was questioning, yet again, why he was allowing himself such poor reaction.<br/><br/>All insults were left unsaid - because none of those words would be effective enough to squash whatever this was. And Dorian didn’t deserve to be their target.<br/>“Fuck,” he grimaced at the agony, cruel hands of fate having just sunk into his ribcage and ripped his heart out.</p><p>“Oh, come on now…” Dorian's voice descended into a whisper, as he guided a calming palm to his throat.<br/>“Don’t be that way, my dear.” His fingernails drew racy patterns around Dorian’s stubble before slipping back to the base of his neckline. It felt marvellous. How he'd missed that touch.<br/>“Let the girls have their fun.”<br/>He pulled him close using an unyielding grip. “We’ve had some wonderful times together, Ethan. We could rekindle them.”</p><p>He put his fingers up, erecting a wall, stopping the fringes of his thirsty mouth just short of sucking his lips dry. God, he wanted him. If he didn’t have the women in the parlour in earshot he’d take him right here against the goddamn wall.<br/><br/>“I need some air, Dorian. I’m going to the barn.” His cock was bleeding in his undergarment. What was this man doing to him?! <br/><br/>Dorian’s thigh for a moment brushed against his, a tremor passing through them both.<br/><br/>"Excuse me."  Ethan stormed by the parlour, his boot dragging to an abrupt stop when he spotted her, standing where she’d been a few moments ago, only now her lips sealed with Anne’s, their fingers interlaced.<br/><br/>Feeling eyes on them, she broke, Anne’s blood red lip stain a smear on Vanessa’s. She stared back at him as if she was a bystander uninvolved in the drama. He could feel the light fading from his eyes.<br/>She didn’t flinch, nor make to move. She did not reach out to hold his hand, cradle his face, and stop the flickering light from being extinguished.<br/>Instead, she smiled.</p><p>What was he expecting? A maudlin reunion? That she’d clutch her collar and run over, to swear loyalty to him? Grab his wrist and reassure him that her exchanges with his friends were merely benign? That she wasn’t drawn to Anne? Or even if she was, that she would not act upon it?<br/><br/>He was a hypocrite himself. Running to the barn so he didn’t throw himself on his ex-lover in the presence of two ladies.</p><p>So, she stayed in her spot, watching him with an expression that was a hundred miles away, seemingly immune to his plight. And it told him the truth he’d been avoiding.</p><p>Ethan was indeed a mere sport for her, someone to pass the time with and perhaps an extra set of fangs against the hunter on her heels.<br/>She did not love him.<br/><br/>_</p><p>Ethan was brushing his horse using long strokes over its strong, muscular flanks. It was a mighty steed. Black as pitch but sweet as pulled sugar.<br/><br/>He wasn’t surprised to hear steps behind him- the creaking of planks and hay under light tread.<br/><br/>“Dorian.”<br/><br/>“Ethan.”<br/><br/>His head was still hung, his long chocolate locks a curtain in front of his sad eyes. His back was turned, and even upon hearing Dorian’s voice he dared not shift.<br/>“He’s beautiful. I don’t know that much about horses, but it’s a fine looking stallion.”</p><p>“He is. And thank you.” <em>If he takes another step, I don’t think I’ll be able to resist.<br/></em><br/>Hot air blew from the animal’s nostrils, and his hooves clapped on the creaky wood. Ethan trapped his words, pushing them past his emotions. A hand splayed over the long snout, gently rubbing in.<br/><br/>Dorian advanced, imagining losing himself in Ethan’s warmth once more.<br/>“I’m sorry.”<br/><br/>The reply came a few seconds later. “For what?”<br/><br/>A hand curled over the pointy bone of Ethan’s shoulder. The wolf, rigid in his stance, did not reject the touch.<br/>“I’m sorry our coming here broke the spell.”<br/><br/>He knew exactly what he meant. Exactly. Dorian needed to know that incantation had long been broken. None of this could be attributed to them. <br/>“It had nothing to do with your arrival, Dorian. You just made the process speed up. But thank you.”<br/><br/>A pointy chin rested next to the hand, and a slim arm gathered the man around Ethan's waist in a protective gesture. Ethan wasn’t used to this. He wasn’t used to someone hugging him from behind or offering consolation.<br/>But God did it feel good, so he let himself relax into it, closing his eyes for a moment just to revel fully in Dorian’s searing caress.<br/><br/>“I know I don’t seem like a man capable of deep emotion, Ethan. And… normally that is the case.”<br/><br/>What was this? Ethan wondered. Was he taking pity or being serious?<br/>Nevertheless he felt compelled. His paw closed over Dorian’s delicate hand and squeezed.<br/><br/>“I know a different Dorian than most, I wager. I find that to be a privilege.”<br/><br/>Feelings were taking over, turning the aristocrat’s mind over. “There was another reason I came here, Ethan,” his breath tickling his ear.<br/><br/>Spinning around, but not releasing his hand, Ethan found himself face to face with his guest.<br/>His pulse raced as he advanced to where he placed himself just an inch from his lips.<br/><br/>“I came here, Ethan, because something in me calls out for you. I’ve had many lovers since… and as each new one left my bed I began to feel emptier and emptier.”<br/>Ethan’s wet almond eyes… his penetrating gaze probing Dorian’s face… he’d be damned if he didn’t see something there, a glimmer. "My thoughts always come back to you."<br/><br/>“What are you trying to say, Dorian?”<br/><br/>Dorian grabbed their hands, bringing them to his perfect lips, kissing only Ethan’s fingertips. “Passion will undo the best of us and lead only to tragedy. It’s ever thus for those who care so deeply.”<br/><br/>Ethan bent his head, brushing his free hand across Dorian’s jaw in one smooth swipe.<br/>He was magnificent.<br/>The slight chill to the breeze breaking through the drafty barn gave them the excuse to press their bodies together, and at the contact Dorian sighed audibly.<br/><br/>“What does that mean, Dorian?” His magnetic eyes were liquid pools of desire.<br/>Dorian flattened down a tuft of Ethan’s unruly hair. “It means there is no one else I’d rather fall into tragedy with, my love. Adversity and woe seem to find their way to our doorsteps. Always. So why not weather this together, thee and me?”<br/><br/>“Oh Dorian…”<br/><br/>Dorian took the cue, sank into his body, the hard planes of the wolf’s muscles enfolding him. Goosebumps clothed them both and it had nothing to do with the brisk temperature.<br/><br/>Ethan skimmed his eager lips along the sweep of his cheek and put himself in the same breathing space. Looking him straight into his sea foam eyes, eyes that promised deliverance and hope… as if looking into them could transport them into another place and time where only they existed and they mattered…<br/>Ethan confessed “I’m broken, Dorian. And part of me still loves her. I’m going to need time.”<br/><br/>Rubbing the arc of his hip bones with his thumbs, Dorian drew him in further, embraced him like that sentiment had been inside of him since conception, just waiting to come out.<br/><br/>“You’re in luck, my love,” Dorian winked. “Time is one thing I never run out of.”<br/><br/>“Dorian…” Ethan fell into a pool at his feet, like a pond reflecting silver moonlight. How can something so damned be so goddamn beautiful?<br/><br/>“Hush now, Ethan. We have an eternity for small talk. Please just kiss me now. Just kiss me.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The line about tragedy is something Dorian says in the show, don't remember which episode.<br/>These two are going to be the death of me!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I changed the ending to make this work- but I hope it doesn't take away from what I'm trying to weave here.<br/>If you enjoyed this first installment please feel free to kudo and comment- we writers thrive knowing that you enjoy our prose!<br/>Thanks as always for reading me.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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